Archie McPhee

Mark Pahlow sold odd items by mail from Los Angeles in the 1970s, under the name Accoutrements [1]. A retail outlet followed in July 1983, in Seattle's Fremont neighborhood, and he called it Archie McPhee after his wife's great-uncle, a jazz musician and a jokester [1]. The warehouse and offices went to a business park in Mukilteo in 1996, and the store itself moved to a bigger Ballard storefront in 1999 [1]. The company bought a liquor store next door and turned it into a home decor shop called More Archie McPhee [1]. In 2009 the store shifted again, to a smaller space in Wallingford [1]. The goods widened beyond the original one to glowing aliens, air freshener smelling of bacon and swizzle sticks shaped like hula girls [1]. Ben & Jerry's introduced its Wavy Gravy ice cream at a gathering held on the premises in 1993 [1]. A librarian action figure, posed for by Nancy Pearl, brought wider notice [1], and the Rubber Chicken Museum opened inside the Wallingford store in 2018 [1].